Aims.Accretion rates from disks around pre-main sequence stars are of importance
for our understanding of planetary formation and disk evolution. We
provide in this paper estimates of
the mass accretion rates in
the disks around a large sample of Herbig Ae stars.

Methods.We obtained medium resolution
2 μm spectra and
used the results to compute
values of from the
measured luminosity of the Br emission line, using
a well established correlation between L(Br) and the accretion luminosity
Lacc.

Results.We find that 80% of the stars, all of which have evidence of an associated
circumstellar disk, are accreting matter, with rates
/yr; for 7
objects, 6 of which are located on the ZAMS in the
HR diagram, we do not detect any line emission. Few HAe stars
(25%) have /yr.

Conclusions.In most HAe stars the accretion rate is sufficiently low that the gas in
the inner disk, inside the dust evaporation radius, is
optically thin and does not prevent the
formation of a puffed-up rim, where dust is directly exposed to the
stellar radiation.
When compared to the values found for lower-mass stars in the star
forming regions Taurus and Ophiuchus, HAe stars have on average higher
accretion rates than solar-mass stars; however, there is a lack of very strong accretors
among them, probably due to the fact that they are on average
older.

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